It’s all just a little bit of history repeating pop stars, audiences, performance and ageing

This chapter examines the dynamics of performance in relation to ageing popular music stars and their audiences. As Simon Frith suggests: ‘the meaning of pop is the meaning of pop stars, performers with bodies and personalities; central to the pleasure of pop is pleasure in a voice, sound as body, sound as person’ (2002: 210). This work explores the impact of ageing on these meanings and pleasures in relation to two internationally successful British popular music stars, Shirley Bassey and Petula Clark. For female pop stars, whose star bodies and star performances are undisputedly the objects of a sexualized external gaze; the process of publicly ageing poses particular challenges

Contested identities: exploring the cultural, historical and political complexities of the ‘three Chinas’

When facing the political, historical and cultural complexities of Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, problematic issues arise in relation to understanding the sorts of national/cultural identities that might be projected by them. With regard to these three Chinese language cinemas, a traditional national cinema approach focussing predominantly upon nation-state as a source of meaning would provide only a limited understanding of the meanings generated. This article, however, draws on what Benedict Anderson (1991) put forward as the theory of ‘Imagined Communities’ which assumes a large body of people regard themselves as members of a ‘nation’ (and here we interpret this term broadly and beyond understandings of geographical borders and political systems) through a variety of historical legacies, cultural memories and acts of consumption. In this article we hold the assumption that there is a shared cultural meaning (namely ‘Chineseness’) that extends across the three Chinese language cinemas and consider cultural affinity as greater than national and political boundaries

Call the celebrity: Voicing the experience of women and ageing through the distinctive vocal presence of Vanessa Redgrave

Within the field of ageing studies, ageism is being challenged by querying the ‘progress-versus-decline’ binary (Gullette, 2004) so common in film and television texts and by interrogating the predominant discourse of age, which ‘pivots on the blunt binary of young and old, as if there were only two states of age’ (Woodward, 1999, p. xvii). One of the more productive perspectives suggests that we are young and old or old and young at the same time (Moglen, 2008; Segal, 2013). Whilst contemporary screen media now presents images of ageing which are more diverse and complex than earlier stereotypes and images, the oppositional binary between old and young still remains the most prevalent mode of representing generations. In this article, we focus on the contribution of Vanessa Redgrave’s distinctive vocal presence in relation to the narration of age. As the ‘grande dame who won't conform’, the distinctiveness of Redgrave’s voice incorporates elements of her controversial celebrity persona such as her profound belief in social justice and her personal experience of loss and mourning. Her own physiological ageing is also manifest in the sonic cadences of her post-menopausal voice but her status as one of Britain’s greatest and most enduring actresses works against typical notions of the disempowered older voice to command attention through her skilled delivery of vocal frequency, intensity range and quality (Prakup, 2012). As the voice-over narrator in Call the Midwife (BBC, 2012 – ) Redgrave’s voice facilitates a rare example of female subjectivity emerging as young and old at the same time. Redgrave’s serene, measured voice suggests both a process of reliable narration and also identity integration along the life course. Her voice-over serves to link the past and present of one of the central characters (Jenny Lee). The younger Jenny is thus mediated by an older woman’s experiences and, at the same time, the late life narrative of the older Jenny is re-energized

Call the celebrity: Voicing the experience of women and ageing through the distinctive vocal presence of Vanessa Redgrave

Within the field of ageing studies, ageism is being challenged by querying the ‘progress-versus-decline’ binary (Gullette, 2004) so common in film and television texts and by interrogating the predominant discourse of age, which ‘pivots on the blunt binary of young and old, as if there were only two states of age’ (Woodward, 1999, p. xvii). One of the more productive perspectives suggests that we are young and old or old and young at the same time (Moglen, 2008; Segal, 2013). Whilst contemporary screen media now presents images of ageing which are more diverse and complex than earlier stereotypes and images, the oppositional binary between old and young still remains the most prevalent mode of representing generations. In this article, we focus on the contribution of Vanessa Redgrave’s distinctive vocal presence in relation to the narration of age. As the ‘grande dame who won't conform’, the distinctiveness of Redgrave’s voice incorporates elements of her controversial celebrity persona such as her profound belief in social justice and her personal experience of loss and mourning. Her own physiological ageing is also manifest in the sonic cadences of her post-menopausal voice but her status as one of Britain’s greatest and most enduring actresses works against typical notions of the disempowered older voice to command attention through her skilled delivery of vocal frequency, intensity range and quality (Prakup, 2012). As the voice-over narrator in Call the Midwife (BBC, 2012 – ) Redgrave’s voice facilitates a rare example of female subjectivity emerging as young and old at the same time. Redgrave’s serene, measured voice suggests both a process of reliable narration and also identity integration along the life course. Her voice-over serves to link the past and present of one of the central characters (Jenny Lee). The younger Jenny is thus mediated by an older woman’s experiences and, at the same time, the late life narrative of the older Jenny is re-energized

Ageing across Space and Time: Exploring Concepts of Ageing and Identity in the Female Ensemble Dramas Tenko and Call the Midwife

This article focuses on two female ensemble dramas Tenko (BBC/Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1981-5) and Call the Midwife (BBC, 2012-) and uses an ageing studies lens to explore the way that the ensemble format provides a particularly rich insight into the relationship between women, ageing and understandings of women's identity over time. The two dramas provide complex and evocative links between the spaces and times of British politics, culture and society in different historical periods enabling a highly nuanced engagement with the ideological constructions of concepts of age and women's gendered identities

‘Shine on you Crazy Diamond/s’: Reversioning and Restorying Age and Race through Europe and across the Black Atlantic

Chapter 7. The chapter is concerned with Shirley Bassey and Kanye West’s coverage of the song 'Diamonds are Forever' from the perspective of age, inheritance and post-colonial hauntings of race and identity

‘Shine on you Crazy Diamond/s’: Reversioning and Restorying Age and Race through Europe and across the Black Atlantic

Chapter 7. The chapter is concerned with Shirley Bassey and Kanye West’s coverage of the song 'Diamonds are Forever' from the perspective of age, inheritance and post-colonial hauntings of race and identity